by jphilo | Aug 26, 2015 | Recipes
Today’s recipe is a great after school snack. It’s perfect for kids who come home hot and hungry the first few weeks of school. The original recipe comes from one of those annoying websites with lots of confusing arrows and pop up ads. The kind of websites I usually hate. But the ingredients were healthy and the recipe was easy to make dairy-free.
So I gave it a try. The frozen pops were tasty and satisfied my sweet tooth. The original recipe suggested freezing them in popsicle molds. Since I don’t have them and don’t want to reclutter my cabinets, I used 3 ounce. Dixie cups and plastic straws cut in half instead. The cups worked beautifully. The straws not so much. Next time–and I will make them again– I’ll use wooden craft sticks instead.
Dairy-Free Pineapple Cream Pops
1 large, ripe, fresh pineapple cut into cubes
2 cans coconut cream (not coconut milk)
1 lime
Stevia to taste
Open the cans of coconut cream (DO NOT SHAKE THEM) and skim off the heavy cream on top. Put it in a small, deep bowl. (Refrigerate the rest of the coconut liquid and use it in smoothies or baking.) Whip the coconut cream with an electric mixer until it is frothy and thick.
Put the pineapple cubes in the blender. Process until you have a smooth, frothy mixture. Add the juice of 1 lime and process for another minute. Add the coconut cream to the blender and process until all ingredients are mixed well. Taste the mixture and add Stevia if it needs sweetening.
Pour the liquid into 3 ounce. Dixie cups.
Put a wooden stick or plastic straw in each cup.
Cover with foil. Put in freezer for several hours. Before serving, peel off the paper. Enjoy!
by jphilo | Aug 19, 2015 | Recipes
Tomato season is here. Every week since mid-July our CSA share has been packed with delicious slicing tomatoes and pint boxes of cherry and grape tomatoes. I’ve kept on top of the slicers, but the smaller ones were piling up faster than we could eat them. So last week, I took a recipe for oven-roasted Roma tomatoes and adapted it for cherry and grape tomatoes. About two-thirds of the roasted tomatoes found their way onto pesto pizza (just leave off the cheese to make it dairy-free) and the rest are in the fridge waiting to be used as one of many ingredients in pesto pasta. I liked the roasted tomatoes on the pizza. The Man of Steel wasn’t quite so sure.
The recipe is very easy, though the tomatoes have to roast a long time, so be sure to start them early or prepare them a day or two in advance.
Slow Roasted Cherry and Grape Tomatoes
3 pints of cherry or grape tomatoes, or a combination of the two
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon dried basil or 2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano or 2 tablespoons fresh oregano, chopped
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
Heat oven to 200 degrees. Wash tomatoes. Remove stems. Slice tomatoes in half and put in a large bowl. Mix remaining ingredients together in a smaller bowl. Pour mixture over halved tomatoes and toss until all are coated.
Spray 2 large cookie sheets with cooking spray. Pour half of tomatoes into each cookie sheet. Turn tomatoes so cut side is facing up. Like this:
Put in oven and roast for 5 hours. Take trays out and remove tomato halves that are well-dried. Continue roasting the others for an hour to hour and a half, checking them every 30 minutes. Use immediately in other recipes or store in the refrigerator.
by jphilo | Jul 29, 2015 | Recipes
Peach season is a terrible thing to waste. To avoid that tragedy, I devoted part of last weekend to making 2 fresh peach pies using a recipe that’s been in our family for over 50 years. The Man of Steel and I will be celebrating peach season with a pie every week or so until peach season ends.
Without hesitation, I can say that this recipe makes the best peach pie ever. So good my mother-in-law from Alaska scheduled her summer visits during peach pie season.( I’m not making this up.) That’s why, even though this recipe has appeared on the website before, it’s worth being featured again today.
Good as the recipe is, it is also simple to make. I’ve only changed two ingredients over the years. First, I cut the cup of sugar in the original recipe to 1/2 or even 1/3 cup, depending on the sweetness of the peaches. Second, I use Earth Balance Buttery Vegan Stick instead of butter so the pie is dairy-free.
What are the secrets to making the best peach pie ever? First, you have to select good peaches. Where we live Missouri, Colorado, or Michigan peaches are best. California, South Carolina, and Georgia peaches have to travel too far and never work as well. Second, use lard in the crust. Now, here’s the recipe for the best peach pie you will ever eat.
Fresh Peach Pie
5 large or 7 small to medium peaches
1/3–1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons butter (or Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Stick)
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
Slice three large peaches into a nine inch baked pie shell. In a sauce pan, crush two large peaches. Mix together sugar and tablespoons of cornstarch and add to crushed peaches along with water. Cook and stir constantly until mixture boils, thickens and turns clear. Add butter or Earth Balance and almond flavoring and stir. Pour hot mixture over sliced peaches in the pie shell. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours before serving.
by jphilo | Jul 22, 2015 | Recipes
Well, I jumped straight from the family camp frying pan into the helping with the 3-monty-old grandbaby fire. Which means that while the Gravel Road kitchen remains closed, this grammy is flexing her cooking muscles on a daily basis. Especially today which is the birthday of the baby’s mommy.
The birthday mommy requested shrimp scampi for supper and cherry pie instead of birthday cake. Because all the adults at the table couldn’t eat dairy, I jimmied the original scampi recipe to make it non-dairy. Also, we didn’t have dried cranberries, so I substituted fresh sweet cherries. They were a worthy stand in, but the tang of cranberries is even better.
Non-Dairy Shrimp Scampi
1 ½ pounds shrimp, shelled and deveined
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons chopped parsley leaves
¼ cup lemon juice (fresh-squeezed, if possible)
¼ cup dry cooking sherry or dry white wine
½ teaspoon grated lemon zest
½ cup chopped green onions
1 tablespoon chopped, sweet red pepper
1/8 cup dried cranberries
Wash shrimp and pat dry. Season with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add shrimp and cook until pink. Do not overcook. Remove from pan and place on serving platter. Sauté garlic, green onions, and sweet peppers for about a minute. Add sherry or wine and lemon juice. Cook and stir until liquid boils, scraping up any brown bits in the pan. Stir in lemon zest, cranberries and chopped parsley. Pour sauce over shrimp and serve over rice or linguini.
by jphilo | Jul 15, 2015 | Recipes
Gravel Road’s kitchen is closed for the week as the cook is at Family Camp in Idaho. Today’s recipe is a camp breakfast favorite. Uncle Harold, we miss you!
Harold Walker’s Biscuits & Gravy
According to Harold, you must use Jimmy Dean ground sausage.
Brown 1/2 pound of sausage and set it aside.
Whisk together:
1/2 cup flour
3 cups milk
Pour the milk mixture into the skillet containing a few tablespoons of the sausage grease. Stir and heat until it thickens. Add the sausage. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve over biscuits.
by jphilo | Jul 8, 2015 | Recipes
I’m at Family Camp in Idaho this week. The food here is always fantabulous, so today’s recipe features a camp favorite previously posted here on Gravel Road.
These cookies were the brainchild of Mary Anne Walker, known as Grandma Annie to her grandchildren, my husband included. Their lovely memories of their grandma making cookies are easy to see. When they first see their favorite grandma treats lined up on the cooling rack, their eyes light and their smiles spread. “Grandma Annie cookies,” they say one-by-one, “a meal in themselves.”
For me, they were an acquired taste. Now I love them, too. My eyes light up when they’re served at Family Camp. But best of all is listening to Grandma Annie’s descendants talk about the remarkable woman whose faith and love made a deep impression on all of them. And whose cookies have an impressive impact on waistlines, too. But let’s not talk about that!
Grandma Annie Cookies
3/4 cup butter melted in 1/4 cup water
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon soda
3 cups oats
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup raisins
1 cup peanuts
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add butter, water, vanilla and eggs. Mix thoroughly. Shape into large balls and drop onto cookie sheet. Bake 12-15 minutes.
